[quote=FlyerInHi]BG, if we don’t figuratively and literally build, then how do we increase wealth?
We need more people to grow sales and increase profits, broaden the tax base.
People want pay raises to live better and move up to bigger, newer, better, fancier. Government wants bigger city halls, courthouses and higher pensions. Maybe you don’t, but that’s what people want in general.
Sure, we want our individual bubbles, but take yourself out of the picture and look at it objectively.[/quote]FIH, if CA and its subdivisions need more revenue for “modernization purposes,” they need to put their legislative heads together and agree to repeal Props 58 and 193 ASAP and limit Prop 13 original assessments + 2% yr to the original 1978 resident-owners who are still residing on the same parcel today. All assessments of all other parcels with formerly-reduced assessments in accordance with these sections should be raised to FMV forthwith (as almost all other states do at least every two years).
It is grossly unfair to owners of parcels who bought in the last 20 years to have 2-10 times the tax bill of the owners of their adjacent parcels. Props 58 and 193 beneficiaries, in particular, do not in any way, shape or form deserve this gubment largesse at the expense of their neighbors and the budgets of the city/county they live in. These millions of property owners in CA (they or their tenants) whose assessments are 1/8 to 1/10 of the market value of their properties use just as much or MORE municipal services as their neighbors who are paying taxes closer to “market-rate assessment.”
It is also unfair that millions of CA landlords are allowed to rake in the dough every month on properties which cost them a mere pittance to hang onto, especially those LL’s who own multi-unit properties in high-cost coastal cities which can command exorbitant rents.
The original beneficiaries of Prop 13 whom it was passed to protect and who are still residing today in the homes they purchased pre-1978 should be allowed to keep their old assessments. They will all inevitably die off one by one and those properties could be immediately reassessed to market rate retroactive to the date of the last owner’s death.
CA doesn’t need any more population to tax. It needs to properly tax the HUGE population it already has. If Prop 13 and its progeny are limited and repealed, CA (and its subdivisions) should be fiscally solvent forever. Problem solved.
The way the “system” is now “rigged” in CA, the “rich” (and their families) just get richer and richer and all other property owners and the state, cities and counties are left with the bill. In other words, the families who have lived in CA the longest and bought multiple properties long ago and held onto them are the only families winning this game.
